2018 Pink Salmon Harvest Forecast

The 2018 Southeast Alaska Pink salmon harvest forecast is out. The harvest is predicted to be in the average range with a point estimate of 23 million fish (80% confidence interval: 3–44 million fish). This would be below the recent 10-year average harvest of 38 million pink salmon, but near the average even-year harvest since 1960 (25 million).

This year, unlike in recent years, ADF&G did not use NOAA’s forecast as a basis for their forecast. The juvenile pink salmon abundance indices from the 2017 trawl survey were the lowest in the 21 years NOAA has been conducting the survey, and about 25% of the previous lowest index. Forecasts using the previous forecast models resulted in negative to <10 million fish prediction for 2018. Instead, ADF&G chose a trend model and the pink salmon harvest forecast is based on the average of the recent even-year harvests (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016) by subregion (Northern Southeast Inside, Northern Southeast Outside, and Southern Southeast).